Category: Hiking

I’ll make this a quick post, because when you’re researching gear, you want only the most pertinent information, and for detailed reviews there are much much better websites out there.

Now if you’re considering an Ultralight 3-season 1 person or 2 person tent*, (By this I mean, a tent suitable for 1 person or 2 persons, and not the nomenclature the tent manufacturers use.) Big Agnes makes some of the best tents out there. Other brands you might want to consider who make similar tents are MSR and Nemo. You could throw in REI as well. (Well, surely there are others like Black Diamond, and for the really ultralight, ones like Zpacks)

I currently own a Copper Spur HV UL2, and having used it a couple of times, I really like the tent. The previous 2 person tent I owned was a ALPS Mountaineering Lynx 2. For the price it was a really good tent – very spacious inside, easy to setup, durable …etc. But heavy and it caught the wind like crazy. That tent had a trail weight of 5 lbs. 4 oz. and a total weight of 5 lbs. 13 oz. coming in 3 oz. under 6 lbs. As anyone that goes backpacking will attest to, a 6 lb tent is a heavy tent.

The Copper Spur HV UL2 is the High Volume version of the older Copper Spur UL2 tent. I emailed Big Agnes and asked them if I was considering the two tents, and wanted to make a decision, did the older model have an advantage in terms of better materials ? or because of the lower-profile design, better in winds …etc ? They replied back saying there was no advantages in terms of materials on the older model, and in terms of wind resistance, the redesigned poles of the newer tent was actually way better. I compared them side by side at a store, and

The poles looked beefier,

The side doors had been fixed not to fall to the ground,

The tent was roomier on the inside,

I guess on the negative side, it is slightly shorter now, but at 5′ 11″, I did not have issues with the tent length.

Another minor negative is, they replaced some of the translucent material closer to the floor of the tent with mesh – I don’t see an issue with this either.

So, in my opinion, and from what I’ve read elsewhere on the internet, the HV version is better.

Now, when I used this tent a month back trying to summit Mt. Whitney, me and a good friend of mine shared the tent. It was definitely cozy for a 2 people. We both are roughly the same height and same build – neither of us is beefy. We both used regular sized sleeping pads and bags. There was enough space to lay the sleeping pads side by side, but if you slept in anything other than a mummy bag, there would be entangled limbs, or at the very least elbows hitting the other person 🙂 The cold weather on Whitney and the fact that we were both inside our mummy bags zipped up, meant we actually managed ok. If you were going on a longer backpacking trip, the Copper Spur UL2 might not be a great choice. For the weight though, (2 lb. 12 oz, 3 lb 1 oz) it’s great.

I’ve also been looking for a lighter tent to carry for solo backpacking. I just shaved ~1 lb from switching to a lighter sleeping pad, and was determined to shave another 1 lb from the tent. Yay, another liter of water that can be carried! (Ok, roughly 1 liter)

So. I’ve been faced with two questions,

What do I do about the 1 person tent ? i.e., when I go out backpacking alone.

Is my current 2 person tent good enough for 2 people ? Are there better options out there.

I’ve kind of narrowed down to the Fly Creek and Copper Spur lines. If you follow and read forums online, it looks like the Copper Spur is preferred by more people for it’s 2 doors/vestibules and it’s fully free-standing structure, compared to the Fly Creek which needs to be staked out – and is not fully free-standing. I agree with this for the most part, but if you compare the weights, and sizes of the tents, you see some interesting things.

Amazingly, Big Agnes’ youtube videos’ weight don’t match their website’s spec weights in some cases. It’s only a few oz, but still. For e.g., the Copper Spur HV UL2 is shown to be 2 lb 14 oz in the video, while it is 2 lb 12oz in the specs. The Fly Creek weights appear accurate.

Keeping in mind the Copper Spur HV UL2 weight ~2 lb 12oz, (3 lb 1oz), I’m looking at a tent weighing ~ 1lb 12oz (2lb 1oz). That tent happens to be the Fly Creek HV UL1. But then considering the Fly Creek HV UL2 is only 4oz heavier, and costs roughly the same as well, I think it is just the better choice.

Now, remember I plan to use this as a 1 person tent. so the side vestibule vs front vestibule shouldn’t matter.

What’s amazing is the Fly Creek HV UL2 is actually still 3oz lighter than the Copper Spur HV UL1.

For that, I guess, you lose the freestanding ability. So if you camped in very rocky terrain where staking the Copper Spur might still be better.

For me though, I’m definitely getting the Fly Creek HV UL2. (The way to swallow the prices of these tents, is to think of expensive lodges in national parks where one night costs between $100 and $300 🙂 )

EDIT: After having purchased the Fly Creek HV UL2, I absolutely did not like the tent. It was spacious inside, and for a 1 person, the door was ok too. But I hated the fact that to keep the side walls from falling in, they had to be staked too. This would make pitching in a rain a pain. So, I decided to go with the Copper Spur HV Ul1, and so far I am happy with this tent. I might even leave some stakes (each measuring 25gms) behind to save on weight.

This article is in Reverse Chronological order, so read it from the bottom up 🙂 (well, just the sections, not word by word.)

A picture is worth a thousand words, and this is a pretty large pic, so I’d say if you don’t want to read through, you could instead stare at the poetic beauty of the image instead. (I finally figured out how to link it to the original larger sized image! WordPress – you’ve dumbed down your tools from the last time I used them.)

N: The Actual Hike

(A) A Written Account

Having arrived in Phoenix on Friday, and after an evening meeting people I know, I crashed at a friends place and slept around 11:30pm announcing to my friend that I would need to wake up by 4am to keep things on track

Day 1 – Saturday

Getting there, Breakfast and Shuttle to trailhead:

I managed to wake up around 4:30 am. Started driving from Tempe at 5:15 am. Took a rest and refueling stop near Flagstaff. Google maps wasted time as always!! – I was looking for a subway which was supposed to be 0.1 miles away – except on the other side of the highway through a service road – instead Google maps decides to take me on a 5 mile joy ride and brings me back to the same place. Argh!! I stopped to find the Subway would open only at 9am, bought a cookie and a coffee, and started back.

I ended up reaching the park entrance around 9am, realizing I was already behind schedule by some. From there, I headed to the Bright Angel Lodge and checked in for the Phantom Ranch reservations (find out why I am actually thankful for this system being in place.) and drove to the Visitor Center, which is where I was planning on parking and taking a shuttle to the trailhead and bought couple of ‘egg and cheese burritos’ (yay! for no meat options) from the Bicycle renting store right next to the Visitor Center – one for breakfast and one for lunch. My original plan had involved packing a 6″ sub for lunch, and to be honest this was better even if pricier. While waiting for the Orange shuttle which takes you to the South Kaibab trailhead, I was wolfing down the burrito so that I was not wasting time. The driver as she is driving to a stop, tells me over speaker that no food is allowed inside to which I nod to let her know I know of the shuttle rules. I put the unfinished burrito in my pack (well, re-wrapping it of course.) and don’t have time to refill my water – I decide to chance it at the South Kaibab trailhead.

Starting from the trailhead and my first oops moment:

I reached the S. Kaibab trailhead around 10am – to my horror there was no water from the tap – I was extremely annoyed for not having filled it earlier and was wondering if I should be stupid and not fill up (well, see the S.Kaibab trail has no water spigots along the way, and no stream that I know of either, so this would have been really dumb.) or go back to a place that had water and fill up and come back – putting me further back on the schedule. I would probably have only done the latter, but thankfully the tap on the back of the structure worked and I breathed a sigh of relief and refill my bottles and hydration pack. I also wolfed down the remaining burrito. I started at the trailhead at around 10:20 am. (got the time thanks to the memory of the tracker, and me doing several screenshots of my phone along the way to get time markers.) There was some ice and snow at the trailhead but there were dry patches – so I decided not to wear my crampons and use my hiking poles instead. With a heavy pack ( I would put it at around 30 pounds ) I might need the hiking poles for traction even on the way down. I have hardly taken 5 steps from the trailhead when I slip – I have a oh fuck moment and try to steady myself with the poles, but no use – I slide and I fall on my butt. That was scary – last thing you want is to fall to your death even before you have begun your hike. I try getting up and slip again – I finally managed to get up dust myself up and decided that I’d still not use the crampons , but would watch the trail and if sections were icy – I’d put them on. Thankfully, nobody was around to see me fall. 😛 That would have been extremely embarrassing. Everything from ‘Watch yourself there.’ to ‘You new to hiking ?’ to ‘What you’re doing Rim-Rim-Rim and you fall at the trailhead ? Do us all a favor and stay indoors will you ?’ 🙂 Of course people are much nicer on trails – but you imagine the worst anyway.

The hike down:

The trail down was quite sunny and I took several breaks and sipped water, electrolytes and ate cliff bars and trail mix from time to time as well. (You don’t need much in the form of nourishment when you climb down, but your body can only absorb nutrients so fast – so you’re better off eating at regular intervals anyway.) Once I descended far enough and got the view of the river in the distance the view was simply spectacular – after a while you see the trail heading all the way to the river . At one view point, a lady even pointed out some rafters in the river – the view was truly spectacular. After which she slyly asked me if she had already asked me to take her photo for her, at which point I was handed her phone and had to play photographer. The favor wasn’t returned, and I didn’t ask. As I neared the tunnel near the Black Bridge I was really excited. I had seen only photos of the place and it was magnificent to see it in person – from the black bridge you can also see the silver bridge and if not for the ultra-bright sun , I should have got some good photos . From there to Phantom Ranch was a short hike. I did not stop by the beach as I knew I was pressed for time. The luxuries of doing the trail at a slower pace is you can actually stop at the beach, take a dip …etc.

Phantom Ranch and onward:

I picked up my sack lunch , was told there would be no water at Cottonwood Campground and so filled up all my bottles to the brim. Here’s something interesting – when I told the attendant behind the desk that I had a sack lunch reservation, she did not ask for any paper to be produced to that effect or even ask my name. While this should probably please you that people would not be dishonest at this neck of the woods, there is a reason this is bad. In case there was an emergency later in the hike, and the rangers asked Phantom Ranch whether or not definitively I had been there to pick up my lunch, they couldn’t answer that. I wanted to ask them if they’d heat my burrito, but decided I could have it cold anyway. This was such a great idea to bring as lunch! I reached Phantom Ranch around 2:30 pm and left around 3:00 pm. Cottonwood is a good 8 miles from phantom ranch with 1500ft of elevation gain. Even at 2mph with the pack, I was going to finish at 7pm – which is kinda bad – because the sun sets at 5:30pm. By mile 6 I was tired. With two more miles to go and the sun down, I was feeling tired and weary. I was hoping for the next several minutes that the camp ground would magically appear soon, but that was obviously not to be. The last half mile to the campground was mentally hard. Its’s kind of the point when the pleasure of such a wonderful hike is beaten by the pain, and you just wish someone would magically carry you to the campground and pitch your tent for you.

Cottonwood Campground, Rats!

I reached the Ribbon falls and Cottonwood intersection at about 6pm and reached cottonwood at around 8pm I think. To make matters worse – on reaching the campground it seemed like the entrance was cordoned off – I can’t tell you how you feel after a long hike to think the campsite might not be open ! And that when the Rangers had issued you a permit!! Not having been there before, and not having the benefit of daylight, I was not sure what to do. (Which is why I am always anxious to reach camp before sun down.) To make matters worse still , there was no one else in the campground I could see or hear! I finally decided to go on the left past the barricade anyway and stumbled upon the campground. Such a relief! There was a couple there doing dishes and I asked them if they knew how to identify the site you are supposed to camp in and they told me that except them there was only one other site that was occupied and I could pick any one of the 10 sites. I picked site 8 and started by putting all my food in the provided ammo box. While I was stowing away the food in the ammo box, I could already hear mice near the campsite. So I hurriedly put everything in one of the ammo boxes which had been placed upside down and with the lid on top of it. After this, I went about pitching my tent and getting my sleeping pad and bag in place. I was making a mental note of the things I would have to do. (Which is hard btw when you’re tired.)

I decided I would put my dirty clothes in a garbage bag and leave that in the other ammo box, and also, change before going to bed – because I do not like sleeping in the same clothes I hiked in. (I’m sure no one does.) After finishing with the tent, I was in for a nasty surprise when I opened the second ammo box – mind you this was not placed upside down, and had the lid on. Inside it there was what seemed to be a zip-lock bag with food left behind God knows when and at least one dead mouse. I rushed the box to another campsite, and got an empty one from there instead. Last thing you want is some disease! Next I proceed to use the alcoholic hand sanitizer before eating something for dinner. In the sack lunch that I had picked up at Phantom ranch, I had Oreos and a pack of peanuts – which was about all I could manage to eat. I had enough Cliff bars – at least 2 and about half a ziplock bag’s worth of trail mix while walking on the trail. This was in addition to the two burritos I had had for breakfast and lunch – so I was not that hungry, and I was tired to eat something – especially, dry and cold.

Rats! Not enough sleep

I then put some stuff including my water bottles, first aid kit …etc in the second ammo box, and hung my pack from the poles that were provided. I am generally told the best way to hand your pack is to leave all the zips open and hang it upside down. I did leave the zips open, but I was afraid of rains and a soaked bag, so I pulled the cover on top of it and this made it impossible to hang it upside down. So, instead I just hung it the way gravity would want the bag 🙂 After this, I went to bed. I should mention that while I was having my food, the mice were running dangerously close to the tents repeatedly – but I was away from the tent, and thought they were just looking for food. Unfortunately, the mice got bolder as the night went by – they started running around my tent – which I was ok with because, come on , you are camping in the backcountry – you are going to have critters come near you. As long as there is no food in your tent, and nothing aromatic, both of which I did not have – animals generally leave you alone. Not these mice – after a while they were running ON my tent between the tent and the rainfly!! This was extremely annoying because the tent is transparent on the top, and I open my eyes to see a mice sitting right on top of my tent. I shooed them away a few times, but they seemed anything but scared. By around 2 am, I was super pissed – if I had a way of killing them, believe me, I would have! I got out of my tent, in an attempt to try throwing a rock or something on them to scare them away, but they hid cleverly in the bushes and ran really fast near my tent – with it getting cold outside, I can’t tell you how much of a wrench this throws into plans – when you have had a hard days hike, you really want a good nights sleep especially if the next day involves an even harder hike, and you need to stick to a timetable. I decided to go back to sleep because the original plans had been to wake up no matter what at 4 am and start hiking by at least 5 am. Here I was at 3 am not yet catching a wink of sleep, and I got less than 5 hours sleep the previous night. I finally went to sleep – and several times, the mice would again climb on my tent and run around, but I stopped bothering about it as there was nothing I could do about it, and just slept anyway. There were two mice that I could count – one small and the other sizably larger. In all the ruckus that involved me getting up and back into my tent, I managed to lose my regular prescription glasses. I recognized the fact the next morning, and tried looking for it but to no avail. Thankfully I had my sunglasses – so I wouldn’t be blind during the day. (Ok, I can still see without glasses pretty well, but I need to be close to boards and stuff before I can read them – not too much but just enough to annoy you.)

Day 2 Sunday

Lack of Sleep and wrench in plans:

I finally woke up at 7am, and was wondering if I should even hike up all the way to the North Rim. These are tough decisions – I would be starting 3 hours behind my schedule, and my schedule was already planned so tight that there was no room to accommodate such delays. I had to be at the Phantom ranch before 6:30pm for dinner, and regardless of how I did the hike, I couldn’t start around 8am and finish by 6:30pm. It was a 14 mile hike with more than 5000ft ascent and descent followed by another 8 miles with 1500ft descent. I wouldn’t be carrying my tent and sleeping bag/pad on the hike up and down the North Rim, but would have to carry them out from Cottonwood to Phantom ranch anyway. And that is 8 miles. With a heavy pack, I estimated that alone would take me 3+ hours. I finally did some calculations – which were aggressive, but doable I thought and the new plan was I hike up North Rim, and have a turn around time, and if I don’t make it to the top by then, I turn around by this time to make the dinner on time at the Phantom Ranch, because if you miss dinner time, you don’t get allowed inside after that. This time was 12:30.So I had 4 1/2 hours to hike up the North Kaibab Trail, 3 hours to hike down and then another 3 hours to Phantom Ranch – yes I know all tight, and quite honestly impractical.

Hike up North Kaibab

The hike up North Kaibab was pretty nice – the views were even more stunning, and there were only some sections which had direct bright sunlight. I started out by eating some muesli – dry that I had packed for breakfast, After that I had some energy chews every so often, and one cliff bar over a couple of breaks. Since I wasn’t carrying some of the heavier items, I think I was climbing about 8-10 pounds lighter – but still about 15-20 pounds on my shoulders. There was to be no water on the North Rim, so I was essentially carrying water for both up and down – which sucks – but hey that’s how it is. I was climbing at a good pace till about the last mile and a half. It’s always the last mile and a half, I tell you. This is also the really steep section – from Supai Tunnel to the North Rim is as much elevation as from Cottonwood to Supai Tunnel. I conveniently chose to not look at this data before climbing. (like I always do – Hello SF first half marathon!!) It was now getting evident that I would not be able to make the top by 12:30. After some mulling over things, I decided I was going to continue on because I had come so close – I was wrong about the ‘so close’ part. I started noticing snow and ice on the trail, but still did not wear crampons. On the way up, you generally have better traction. I did use my poles to test the patch of land I was going to step on, and always kept to the inside of the trail. (North Kaibab has some sections where the falls are 1000+ feet if you slip off the trail – and then you basically plummet to death unless you’re really lucky.) Powdery snow is pretty easy to walk on. It’s the solidified ice that’s a killer. I met a nice guy walking down when I was climbing who was working at the North Rim for the last 6 weeks I think, and wanted to get a view of the inner canyon. He told me there would be no water either at Supai Tunnel or the North Rim – which I knew, but now knew to be confirmed and true. I wasn’t too worried about the water situation except it would add to the time, and time was what I was short on. I had a couple of filters at hand, and could have purified water off some stream if I ran out. Unlike the S Kaibab, on the N Kaibab, a small detour from a few points should give you access to water.

Getting to the North Kaibab trailhead

After a lot of pushing and panting, I finally reached the rim an hour late – at 1:30 pm and was a little tired from all the climbing. There were a couple of couples who egged me to go on and said the trailhead wasn’t that far away – I need to be thankful to them – all the while I was thinking of turning back, not because of the physical challenge, but because of the extra time it was taking, and how I had absolutely no buffer. I finally decided, even if I missed dinner, it would be ok, but a chance to get on top of the North Rim might not come again, and I would have to climb the whole way to get to the top 🙂 With this in mind, I just went up the North Rim. As confirmed by the guy that I met on the way, there was no water at the North Rim trailhead. There were directions to the back-country office where there would be water, but again, thanks to time constraints I did not want to go there. I stopped for lunch – had the apple and a bagel with cream cheese that could only be scooped out by the bagel hardened by the cold. While having food, a Swedish family of 3 approached me and asked me if I had hiked up – after I gave them details, they were genuinely excited and wanted to know more. We got to talking generally about things. At this point, I took the chance to ask them if they had any water – I would normally not have asked someone for water – but this was better than running out later – so I asked anyway. They were only glad to help me out, and gave me two 500ml bottles – which served quite nicely. They also offered to drive me around the North Rim saying that it was beautiful and something I should see. I had to politely decline because I was already running behind schedule. They seemed like a genuinely nice family – and here’s a shout out to them for helping me with my water situation. I would have loved to have chatted for a little longer – especially since the topic of – so do you stay in the US or do you plan to go back to India came up, but time was ticking away, and I had to chow down the damn hard bagel as well.

Hike down North Kaibab:

I started the hike down at around 2pm after wolfing down my lunch. On the way down, I decided I was going to use the crampons because I did not want to chance slipping on the way down. I strapped on the crampons on my boots, and set out on the hike down. The crampons worked really really well. They had amazing grip on snow and even on ice – I was truly impressed. They were so good that in some steep sections, I was literally running down snow and ice. They were also ok on mud – i.e., they did not hurt my foot or cause loss of traction or any such thing. However, on slick rock, they were just plain slippery, and after the initial stretch where there was a lot of snow, I decided to take them off for the one off small section that would have snow/ice on them. My pace going down was pretty good. I was not weighed by the bag, and my legs still felt reasonably fresh. Again, in some sections, I was slow jogging down. I reached Phantom Ranch at around 5pm. I knew coming in that there was no way I was going to make the remaining 8 miles in a hour and a half – That would be insane. So, I came to terms with the fact that I would most likely not get dinner, and after packing all of my stuff including the tent, the sleeping bag and pad back into my pack, I sat down and took time to eat a big chunk of trail mix from my bag. I would need to energy to make it to Phantom Ranch, and they might not have my dinner very likely.

Hike to Phantom Ranch: (Read My Struggle to somehow get to Phantom Ranch)

I started out on the hike at a good pace because I wanted to cover as much as I could before the sun set. Sun set was happening around 5:30m, and there was twilight till about 6pm, after which the moon took over. I did not stop till sunset, and covered as much distance as possible even though the heavy pack on my back was begging me to take a break. I finally did take a break after all sunlight had gone away, and wolfed down a cliff bar. I took plenty of pictured descending down South Kaibab, and even took a few pictured in the initial section of the ascent of the North Kaibab. However, on the way down, I don’t think I stopped to take any more pictured except maybe one or two. Also, on the way to Phantom Ranch I would be surprised if I found a picture I took.

Mile – Mile-and a Half:

The last 1 1/2 miles were crazy – I think my brain had lost all control over my legs, and just to get my legs to keep moving was a challenge – add to this the weariness of 2 days worth of hiking and the fact that by now the pack was anything but nice and light on my shoulder, and I was beginning to grimace. I made it through one more mile with some grit and determination. The last 1/2 mile was absolutely horrible – I will have to look at my data from the tracker, but on level ground I must not have been moving more than 1 mile an hour. I was trying to keep my mind distracted from the situation by trying to count to 60 and reset and repeat – something I do to roughly measure distance while running. After a while I realized I had no idea where I was on the count, or how many sets of 60 I had counted. After trying to restart the process a couple more times, and my mind wandering away, I decided to just put one foot in front of the other. At some point, my legs were literally collapsing with my knee having no control over them!

Reaching Phantom Ranch!! a Relief

I finally reached Phantom Ranch at 8:30 pm. I went up to the desk to see if I could ask them for my dorm reservation first and then maybe beg them for some left over food. If that failed, ask them if I could get something hot to eat. While all of this was playing on my mind – the nice guy behind the counter asks me if I was Karthik – I say yes, and he says – guessed as much. I guess I must have been the only guest who had missed dinner and not checked in yet. He then tells me in words that sound like music to my ears – ‘I’ve got your food warming back there – if you want to go freshen up in your dorm and come back, I’ll make sure it’s ready’ – I can’t tell you the feeling I had then – the relief combined with the joy – I could have cried. I repeatedly thanked him profusely, and told him I’d be back in 5 minutes. I went to the dorm wincing in pain each step seeming like a punishment for attempting to do this in one day. I don’t think I have ever been so tired and physically fatigued – not after biking, not after running any of my half marathons. But I guess 22 miles and 5000ft in one day after having hiked 15+ the previous day with a pack is anything but easy. (a few more miles, and it would have been full marathon with a backpack 🙂 You should try it sometime 🙂 )

When you’re completely out of energy:

After I got to the dorm, I changed into something, and washed my face and hands. I had every desired to have a bath before having food and sleeping, but absolutely no energy left to do just that. I also made a note that I should find my cash to tip the incredible guy at the Phantom Ranch, but again, I could not muster the energy to look for it in my pack. Among other things I did not have the energy to do – eat a Tylenol/Advil, find my money so I could send a postcard and possibly buy some souvenir, apply pain balm to my sore muscles and get the contents of my pack in order.

The Veggie chili tasted like heaven – I could barely prop up myself on the chair, with my head wanting to rest on the table, but the food was so good and so energizing. I would have liked a beer or something to get a good night’s sleep, but again, did not have the energy to find the money and definitely did not have the energy to go back and get it from the dorm. At this point, if I asked him for a tab on top of everything he’’d done for me, I think he would have given me the deathliest of death glares. While I was having my dinner feeling half dead, I notice the rest of the folks are having a gala time – they’re either playing board games with their family, or having a merry time over discussions. Outside, there are groups of people playing the guitar and singing songs. Crap! Here I am barely able to sit up in my chair. That’s what you get for over-aggressive planning.

So I walk back to the dorm, and I have an upper bunk. Annoying thing is, you cannot find contents from your pack, or repack sitting on top of the upper bunk – so I just said ‘fuck it’ – (hear it in a Lewis CK voice) and threw my pack under the lower bunk and just went up and slept. Every muscle in my body was aching. My legs especially, but even my shoulders and my back. It might seem like I am over exaggerating, but once I got in bed, I did not have the energy to even turn/flop around – which I do several times during a night’s sleep. So I basically slept the same way you would sleep inside a mummy sleeping bag. I did get a wonderful night’s sleep though – there were some guys snoring away to glory – but I couldn’t have cared less. I slept like a baby. I think I went to sleep around 10pm, but my alarm woke me up at 4:30 am.

Oh, btw here’s a tip for hiking long distances – don’t wear cotton inners! My base layers were the quick dry material, but not my inners. They chafe like crazy! and I wasn’t carrying any vaseline or cold cream with me. I finally had to resort to using my lip balm (spread onto my fingers first) to kind of treat the chafing.

Day 3 –Monday

Early Breakfast:

I was refreshed enough where I did feel like I could hike today. Last night I had had serious doubts about that and was thinking in the worst case, I’ll beg Phantom Ranch for a dorm for another day. Sure, it would throw a wrench in my Zion plans, but if you can’t walk, then you better not try going up the Canyon with a heavy backpack. I did feel however like I wanted more rest. I managed to have a bath, and rest for a while before heading to the Ranch for the early breakfast at 5:30am. They had Bacon (which was of no use to me), scrambled eggs, pancakes, coffee, orange juice and some canned peach. I took a couple of pancakes, and copious amounts of the scrambled eggs. I also had one half peach, and gulped down the orange juice, and then had some coffee to finish it off. I met a couple of German guys – one of whom lives in the US and his friend who was visiting from Germany and we got to talking about things in general. The amazing thing about hiking is, once you get past the first conversation, people talk to you like they are your buddies, and no one judges you. There was this other family of 3 who were planning on hiking the rim-rim-rim as well, but they were doing it over 5 days and 4 nights. They had stayed at the Phantom Ranch on day 1, and were to stay at cottonwood on day 2 and day 3 and back to Phantom Ranch on day 4 before heading up. That’s probably the sensible thing to do. They were excited to learn that I had made it back to Phantom Ranch in 2 days and had questions about the condition of the trails, water availability …etc. I wished them luck on their hike,and made it back to Phantom Ranch. I wanted to get some more rest before heading back the Bright Angel trail today. So, while I didn’t catch any more sleep, I did manage to rest for maybe an hour longer. Finally, at around 7:30am, I decided, I better get packed and think about leaving soon. Once I started packing and got things going, I was feeling less weary and more confident of being able to do the hike.I met another hiker in the dorm with whom I struck up a conversation – and he tells me that he has had issues with mice before as well, and he carries flares that he leaves near his tent, and that keeps them away generally. Maybe I’ll try it the next time I hike in country inhabited by mice.

Hike up the Bright Angel Trail:

Once I started hiking up, I was not feeling very tired initially. I decided I would go as far as I can with as little break as possible, and then take a break in an attempt to try and reach the trailhead on top quickly. After all, the plans involved hiking out and then followed by a 4 1/2 drive to Zion where I was to camp for the night. I had a campground reserved and was confident of driving – but again, didn’t want to driver too long after Sunset. (having lost my clear glasses.)

Indian Garden Campground – Rest and Lunch

I took my first break near the Indian garden campground, and thought I’d eat a cliff bar before heading up. I reached the Indian Garden somewhere between 10am and 12pm – (thanks to the Austin/Phoenix time zone, that’s as far as I can narrow it down) I met a nice gentleman from Alaska here, who was hiking the backcountry trails – what do you expect of Alaskans ? Once I told him I was doing the R-R-R, he informs me that he did that last week when it was snowing! and he couldn’t see the trail. Whoa! He must be hard-core. I quickly proceed to ask him the cliched question of if he’s done Denali – to which he replies he’s not that hardcore. 🙂 I guess I’m never doing Denali ever. Maybe just Mt. Whitney. Surprisingly, he hadn’t hiked in California either. He was saying his next plan was the JMT – if I had met him at another point along the way, I would have taken his contact, although he was clearly a much better hiker in terms of experience and ability – I was researching JMT on my own, and it wouldn’t hurt to do it with someone better 🙂 But he was too fast for me on the way up, and I never saw him after that really – up until then I was telling myself I was only slow because of my pack. His pack was way heavier just by looking at it’s size – so clearly he was a better hiker. We did get to talking on the mice situation and he tells me, he slept under a tarp and there were mice running ON him.!!The rest of the conversation concerning how he dealt with the situation is not suitable for a written blog, but I know I don’t have the skills required to deal with them in the same way. 😉 I told him about Big Bend, and how it is worthwhile going there for some hikes as well.

There was another couple whom I had passed on my way to the Indian Garden campground – a family of 4, that had then passed me, that were also stopped and taking a break. The lady in the group had offered to take a pic of me – and I’m glad she offered. I think that’s about the only pictures I have of myself on the trail.

Three mile and 1 1/2 mile rest houses:

The climb up from Indian Garden was pretty eventless except for the stunning views looking back. The family of 4 passed me once or twice, with me passing them once or twice. By this time we were saying “Hello again” to each other. At the 3 mile pesthouse, I left my backpack very close to the trail and went to use the restroom. When I came back, the family told me they had to shoo away a squirrel that was curious about my pack. We finally got talking and I told them about my trip so far. They were being sensible and had just come down to the Phantom Ranch and then stayed there a night, and were heading back up. To reward themselves, they were then heading to Scottsdale in Arizona – which during good weather is a wonderful place to be vacationing in. I guess with everyone, once they heard of my itinerary there was newfound respect in their voices – not something I was consciously going for – but when you get asked about your hike, you tell them straight. They were of course climbing with lighter daypacks. 😉 The general courtesy I try and follow is to let faster hikers through, so I was looking at them multiple times as they got close to me. After a while of passing each other, they just tell me to climb at my pace, and they would just hang back.

I must also mention before I forget that while I was not tired, the effects of the last night’s hikes were telling in my leg muscles. They were visibly beaten and wanted more rest. So, while I wanted to go faster and had the energy to, my legs wouldn’t let me. Including the breaks, I think I took about 7 1/2 hours to complete and get to the top.

Shuttle back to visitor center, refreshments and headed to Zion

I stopped a while at the Bright Angel trailhead and took in the magnificent beauty, while removing my pack and letting my shoulders rest. For some reason one of the RV’s seemed like an Ice Cream truck, and through pain I walked all the way up to it, only to have to return back. The wait for the Shuttle to take us back to the Visitor center was not long, and the shuttle came by quickly and whisked us away. At this point, I was smelling like a skunk, and my whole body was weary – not to the extent of exhaustion like the previous day, but a more gentle weariness all around. I hit the visitor center, bought some magnets and the like, to mark the visit. Then I head to the same awesome Bike shop where I bought the Burritos on day 1. I got the exact same burrito and also a bowl of Tomato Bisque soup – which tasted quite wonderful after the hike. Sure I was over-eating 🙂 but hey, I must have burnt calories in the 4 digits. It was a 11 mile ~5000ft climb after all. My car was thankfully parked right next to the visitor center, and after wolfing down the food, I set out for Zion. There is a gas station inside the Grand Canyon – I did refuel there. After the 5:30pm/6pm time, the sun had set and I didn’t get to see the beautiful place that highway 89 is till I returned from Bryce 2 days later. The Page area, Arizona/Utah border is among the most scenic places I have ever seen in my life – including the Grand Canyon.

After having done the hike, here are the things I am happy about – I did complete the whole distance and did not wimp out. I did it in pretty reasonable time considering for the most part I was carrying a 30 pound backpack. After I came back out, I had not broken toe nails or got any blisters. The chafing is something I will have to remember in the coming long hikes.

Here’s the bad – I didn’t get to spend much time by the river or at Phantom Ranch. (something easily fixed if you just go down to the river and back some other time.) I did not get time to explore Ribbon Falls and Roaring Springs. I would have to go up the North Kaibab again if I want to visit these again. I felt I had enough time to get fairly decent photos, although with a point and shoot and a phone, I didn’t have to play around with Aperture/Shutter setting all that much. (My P&S has a manual mode – the reason I even bought it in the first place. 🙂 ) I would also have liked to have stayed the night after the hike up at the Grand Canyon and maybe explored some of the other viewpoints that I have not been to in the past, but I am sure that can always be done in the future.

I typed most of this account first on my phone and then on my laptop on the flight to SF. The last part of Day 3 was filled in later, but I still had good recollection of the details.

N-1 Updates leading up to the Hike:

** Update 2015-11-05 – After keeping fingers crossed for 1 day, (ok, I didn’t actually do it 🙂 ) I finally received the permit by email today 🙂 with directions to attach it to the pack. (I hadn’t found this page on my own – so I’m sharing the link here.) So, looks like I’m all set – permits and reservations wise. Now I just need to pray every day that the weather is not horrible on the 3 days I plan to hike.

** Update 2015-11-03 – So I went ahead and sent 3 different itineraries with different combinations I could think of, last evening. I receive an email this morning saying one of them had been tentatively accepted. Can’t say how overjoyed I am!! Yippee!! They must have realized that I am one persistent SoG and will not relent 🙂 Here’s an excerpt from the email I received:

“At your request we have temporarily reserved a trip for you. However, before we accept a $xx non-refundable payment from you, we want to make sure you understand what you requested. Experience has shown that solo hiking leaves an inadequate safety margin for dealing with problems that might come up, and this can lead to poor decisions, expounded injuries, and even death. Please do not accept this itinerary merely because it is available. Make sure it is what you really want and well within your capability. The Hiker Information Sheet form (available at http://www.nps.gov/grca/planyourvisit/upload/Hiker_Information_Sheet.pdf) explains some key factors that work together to make hiking within Grand Canyon unusually difficult and potentially dangerous. If this itinerary is not what you want or not within the capability of all group members, consider canceling or making a different request — you can download a request form at: http://www.nps.gov/grca/planyourvisit/upload/permit-request.pdf

If you are highly experienced at Grand Canyon and determined to keep this particular itinerary, a permit can be issued to you. Simply read and complete a Hiker Information Sheet (this is useful in the event of an emergency) and return the form to us with full payment.

Note: The hike from the South Rim to Cottonwood campground is considered to be very strenuous. Not only are you hiking 14 or 17 miles, you are also losing almost 5,000 feet of elevation followed by a gain of 1,500 feet. Please make sure that everyone in your group is capable of completing this hike. If you want this permit, please fill out the Hiker Information Sheet and either fax or mail it back to our office. Thank you!

Sounds like fair warning. It basically says – if you are not fully aware of what you are getting into, and fully prepared, don’t come! Even if you are both aware and prepared, there could still be emergencies, and hiking alone is not a good idea. I fully intend to be fully aware and prepared 🙂 As for the hiking alone, you might fall off a cliff, lightning might strike you – well, yes, and yes, someone cannot help you, but hey, a drunk motorist can run you over too while you are crossing the road. 🙂 Plus, trying to find company for a good hike and making sure your plans overlap is a <profane-word(s)>.

** Update: 2015-11-02 – So, my permit requests to the backcountry campgrounds was denied today. I had requested for Bright Angel campground on 11-21 and 11-22 I believe. With me being flexible to stay in Indian Garden campground on 11-22. Darn it! This will throw a wrench into the plans for sure. I might have to hike rim-river-rim instead on the 22nd and 23rd.

I managed to book a campground in the Mather campgrounds for 11-21-2015. So in case, my attempt to do a walk-in reservation of the campgrounds is denied on 11-21, I’ll at least look around Grand Canyon at a slow pace, and then have a place to sleep for the night. At $18, you can hardly complain. I think the weather might be pretty cold in the rims though. Worst case scenario, will sleep in the car. 🙂

I’m going to try a few more permutations/combinations of different back-country campgrounds and see if at least one of them goes through. Fingers crossed As a backup, also ring up Phantom Ranch and see if they can put me up for 11-21 as well. (I want to be farther down on 11-21 night, but at this point I cannot be picky.)

** Update: 2015-11-01 – I got a reservation for a dorm slot in Phantom Ranch on 11-22-2015. I also got a breakfast reserved for 11-23-2015 and a sack lunch reserved for 11-21-2015. I am yet to be able to get a Vegetarian dinner for 11-22-2015 – apparently only steak dinners are available! Yikes! I’d much rather get another sack lunch.

I thought after attempting the North Rim hike, I should try and get (a) Good food and (b) Good rest before heading out. So, it made sense not to sleep in a tent.

N-2 Preliminary Plans:

I’ve been wanting to do the Grand Canyon Rim-Rim hike for more than a year now. We had plans to do it from the North Rim to the South Rim in May of 2014, but for some reasons, after all preparations had been made including booking shuttles to get us to the North Rim, and booking the North Kaibab lodge, our plans had to be dropped at the last minute. This was a little sad, because everyone involved in the plan was physically conditioned to be able to do the hike quite comfortably. Getting a group which is physically conditioned and mentally motivated is a big deal. Only a few months later, I moved from Tempe to Austin, and now the Grand Canyon is not as accessible as it once was.

However, I do get a week off during thanksgiving, and after some other plans fell through, I decided I wanted to do the Rim-Rim. Of course, the problem with doing it in November is that the North Rim is closed, and so is the North Kaibab lodge. So logistically, you cannot take a shuttle to the North Rim, nor stay at the lodge. You can hike from the South Rim to the North, but again, no lodge – and the North Rim is really cold during winter, so camping there is pretty much out of question.

So, then the only option you are left with logistically speaking is the descend into the canyon on Day1 and plan to stay either at Phantom Ranch or camp at one of the campgrounds. On Day 2, start as close to the North Rim as possible, (I am thinking Cottonwood Campground would be a much better option.) climb up the North Rim trailhead and climb back down to Cottonwood. Then walk to Phantom Ranch. This should be done without carrying a heavy pack. Basically, no tent, no sleeping bag, no sleeping pad. Or any other non-essentials. Should carry enough water and snacks though. Also carry half the sack lunch. On Day 3, after tired legs have been rested enough, start for the South Rim from the River/Phantom Ranch/Bright Angel Campground. Hopefully make it before sun down, then drive out. (As of now I am considering either Zion or back to Phoenix.)

(B) The Distances:

Bright Angel campground is 9.5 miles from the South Rim through the Bright Angel trail.

Phantom Ranch is 9.9 miles from the South Rim through the Bright Angel trail.

South Kaibab trail cuts the distance, but there will be no water. I think I can carry enough water to refill at Phantom Ranch, so on the way down this is not an issue. Even on the way up, I can carry enough water from Phantom Ranch. I might hike down South Kaibab trail if there is no snow on Day 1, to cut distance and to have done all trails.

The North-Kaibab trailhead to Cottonwood campground is 6.8 miles, so if I stayed at Cottonwood campground on Day1, I can shave some distance off the North Rim hike. But that would also mean camping away from Phantom Ranch, and Cottonwood Campground might not have water in November. Decisions decisions! Bright Angel campground to Cottonwood campground is about 7.2 miles one way with about 1600 ft elevation gain, which cannot be discounted. I think it might be a better idea to camp at Cottonwood campground on Day 1.

From some posts on TripAdvisor, it looks like Cottonwood campground

Has compost toilets

Has water faucets (which might not have water in Nov)

Has no running water sinks.

(C) Tentative Itinerary:

Sat – start from Phoenix at 5am, reach grand canyon by around 8:30am. Get the required permits – check with the park staff on weather …etc, and start down on the hike. Reach Phantom Ranch, collect the sack lunch, and head on to Cottonwood campground. Pitch tent and sleep.

16.7 miles of hike. But hardly any elevation gain till Phantom Ranch. Then some minor elevation to Cottonwood campground – 1600 ft elevation gain. I will be carrying a pack. As long as pack weight is manageable, this should be doable. Some 4000-5000ft descent.

Sun – wake up real early – more like 4am, start hike by 5am regardless of how cold it is outside. (get those fancy warmers if necessary.) Leave the pack (or at least the tent, sleeping bag and sleeping pad) in the campground. (Might need to see if it can be stored in the area.) If carrying food …etc, leave tent where it is. Finish hike by 6pm, and collect diner from Phantom Ranch. Either stay at Phantom Ranch, or stay at Bright Angel campground.

This will be a 20.8 mile hike. 6.8 * 2 from Cottonwood campground to North Kaibab trailhead and back. And 7.2 miles from Cottonwood to Bright Angel campground. 4161 ft elevation. This is a tough hike! Cold weather will be good to have on my side. At an average of 2mph, this will take 10 hours. (not accounting for elevation gain and loss.) 14 hours seems more realistic. If I start at 5am, I can expect to finish by 7pm. This assumes no snow on the trail. If snow, no hike. 🙂

Mon – wake up early-ish, go have early breakfast, and head out of the Bright Angel trail. Expect to take 6-8 hours. If leaving by 8am, will reach around 4pm. Drive out to either Zion or back to Phoenix. 10 miles to South Rim. 4314 ft elevation with a pack. Yikes, this will be challenging as well, considering this will be a climb with a heavy pack.

(D) Physical Conditioning:

I have done some 15 + 12 mile hikes with daypack and backpacks respectively just the last two weekends, and I generally am comfortable cycling decently long distances and running distances (I have run a few half marathons to date – no full yet 🙂 ). I think in terms of endurance, I am pretty good – even after a hard days hike or a half marathon, I still have enough energy to do something for a few hours. I am not great at pace – either running or climbing, but I think that should not matter too much for the hike.

I take planning seriously, and don’t think you should shy away from physical challenges, but at the same time, not take them too lightly. I think over the next 3 weeks leading up to the hike, I will be running, cycling and hiking regularly to get even more conditioned for the upcoming hike.

(E) Weather:

It’s very easy to be fooled by looking up 1 temperature number for the whole of Grand Canyon.

(F) Food:

Sat – breakfast can be had at a diner and Lunch can be taken in. (Buy a Sandwich in Phoenix or on the way.) Will stop at Phantom Ranch for some food and water refill before heading to Cottonwood campground. Will need to get an early start. Dinner – 1 sack lunch.

Sun – breakfast has to be carried. (Muesli + Bagel) Pack lunch can be grabbed the previous day from Phantom Ranch. (doubles as dinner the previous day and lunch on this day.) Leave pack at the food storage box or the pack poles. Make it back by Sundown to Cottonwood campground and then to Phantom Ranch. If I start the hike around 5am and brave the cold, I should be able to come back down by around 6:30pm in time for the dinner.

If I stay at Phantom Ranch on Sunday, I can have dinner there, and get a good night’s rest in not so cold conditions. Alternately I can also stay in bright angel campground.

Base Layer (2X pairs) – One lighter set for the hike, and one to sleep in.

Hiking Shirt and Pants

Fleece Jacket + Gloves + Head Scarf.

Crampons (just in case it snows and ices)

Hiking poles

Hiking Boots and 3 pairs of hiking socks. Extra Shoe laces.

Steripen and Sawyer Filter for water filtration

First Aid Kit + Lip Balm + Hand Sanitizer + Sunscreen.

TP + Plenty of Ziplock bags and Paper Towels. (A Trowel might not be required considering the campgrounds have at least compost pits)

Torch and Headlamp

1 x Knife

2 X Polar Bottles + Electrolyte

1 X 3L bladder.

Hat + Sunscreen

Camera ?

Need to think if I should carry a day pack, or just use the Backpack with all of the load removed for the day hike to the North Rim. I also need to try and keep pack weight to 25-29 pounds. Don’t pack additional stuff beyond that. This includes 10 pounds of water weight, and I guess about 3 pounds of food weight. That allows for only 12 pounds of other stuff including the pack.

N-2 Misc:

I found this page which is wonderfully written and quite nicely composed with well shot pictures as well. I doubt if I will ever have the patience to write something so nice, so I’ll just include a link to it instead 🙂

The Nat Geo topo map is a very helpful resource. Also I had a book by Laurence Parent – which I kind of skimmed through to get some details.

The Plan:

The NPS Website gives a good itinerary for the Outer Mountain Loop. It’s supposed to be a 3 day 2 night itinerary, and after looking at it closely, reading the top map, and with the South Rim hike under my belt in less than 8 hours and not feeling all that exhausted after that hike, I decided to do the itinerary exactly as it was on the NPS suggestion. I have read in forums that the South Rim hike is probably a better backpacking route for people looking for less of a challenge and more views – I actually agree with this – the South Rim is absolutely beautiful, and you could do the Emory side hike as well. Also, if you did the South Rim, there are established backcountry campgrounds all along. For the Outer Mountain Loop, you’d have to Zone Camp – meaning, locate your own area where you want to pitch your tent. ‘

We did plan to cache water at the bear box near the Homer Wilson Ranch. I was thinking that about 5l per person might cut it till we got to the Fresno creek. On a previous South Rim hike I used up about 750ml of electrolyte mixed water and 2l of water itself. That was also roughly 8 hours and an entire day. So, I was thinking we’d manage with 5l of water each.

For the hike, I had invited a couple of my friends – Vivek, Mihir and Shyam, of which Mihir and Vivek made it while Shyam did not. Shyam had just done the Half Dome hike the week before – and he claims he was recovering from it, although I personally think having done Half Dome, this wasn’t challenge enough for him. 😉 I had most of the equipment required, and even had some spare stuff, so in terms of equipment we would be fine.

Food Planning:

Instant noodles is always a good option. Mountain-house type freeze dried meals are good, but vegetarian options are hard to come by, not to mention the food is real expensive.

After doing a lot of research as to how much calories we would need considering we would be backpacking, and how much weight we would ideally want to carry, I narrowed down in Idahoan Mashed Potatoes , Knorr Instant Rice, Noodles for Lunch and Dinner and some Muesli and Instant Oatmeal for breakfast, Apart from this, I carried some Hot Cocoa, coffee powder, milk powder and Stevia. Also, trail mix for 3 days and about 6 cliff bars each. We finally decided to make one meal Indian and carried Paneer Butter Masala and Pulav 🙂 from MTR. Basically dip in boiling water and eat. These are heavier to carry, but hey, at least one meal needs to be good 🙂

Water Planning:

I carried a 3L bladder for water and 2 750ml Polar bottles for water-electrolyte mix. I generally use Powerade mixes with water. I don’t like the sugary Gatorade bottles, but electrolytes are essential while hiking.

Weight Planning:

A lot of work also went into weighing each common item and making sure everyone was roughly carrying the same weight. I didn’t want people to grumble at the end of the hike and feel they carried more than others 🙂 To make sure everyone believed in the fariness of the system, I had a luggage weighing scale – with which to weight the packed backpack before the hike. All of us averaged around 35 pounds, with some variation of course. 35 pounds with good packs and with hiking poles to support the weight during climbs is generally pretty decent. It’s not ultralight, but it’s not heavy either, unless you are really scrawny.

We did carry a bear-canister just in case. Most of the weight was from the packs, the sleeping bags/pads and the tents. I had to leave behind my camera and my pillow! because they would contribute another 500gms. 🙂 When you tack on a pound to 35+ pounds, every pound matters, and wants become needs very quickly.

Execution:

Some things fell apart quickly 🙂 I would have ideally wanted to leave around 5pm on Friday, reach Big Bend around 12am, 1am ish, sleep for 5-6 hours and start the hike on Saturday morning at 9am sharp. The Visitor center opens at 8:30 in the Chisos Basin, and you’d need to get backcountry permits before heading out on the hike. So leaving before 9 would not have been possible.

I picked up Mihir in the morning, and he didn’t get much of a sleep the previous night either. Vivek’s flight landed only after mid-night – thanks to it getting delayed. After some thought, Mihir and I decided we would pick him up, and whisk him away directly to Big Bend without coming back home. I did get a good night’s sleep the previous day, and was reasonably fresh, so I was confident of driving without feeling sleepy. We left a little after mid-night, stopped for a coffee, and started on the drive. As always, there were loads of deer on the road, and one of them decided to cross the road right in front of the car – thankfully I was alert enough and managed to slow down/brake. Next up there were a couple of raccoons in the middle of the road, and when they saw a car approaching, they were pretty much frozen, and didn’t move. I had to bring the car to a stop to avoid hitting them. Thankfully there were no cars behind me. Another raccoon did cross the road in front of me, and I managed to avoid it as well. I can unfortunately not say the same for toads. It is entirely possible that I ran one or two over. It was beginning to rain pretty heavily now, and we hadn’t yet made it to I-10. We finally made it safe to I-10 without contributing to the road-kill. I-10 is a little better in terms of road-kill than the 293 highway is. It was a pretty uneventful drive except for the rains. I had to drive at or below speed limit for most of the time. (which sounds entirely normal, but I do like to go a little above to make up for time 🙂 )

Day 1: Saturday

We reached Fort Stockton at around 6 in the morning, and by this time, I was a little sleepy. Sun was also almost up, so I decided to let Mihir take over on the wheel, and wanted to catch a little bit of a nap. I had slept some 40 minutes, when Mihir decides to wake me up because there was a guy running on the opposite side of the road, and it looked like vehicles were parked there. Turns out, it was some running event! Dang It! That was all the sleep I got.

We finally got to big bend at around 8am in the morning, and continued driving towards Panther Junction. We went in, got our park permits, and also got our back-country permits. It was at least 09:30 at this point. A lot of areas in the park looked clear weather-wise, but from what I could make out, there were dark clouds right above the Chisos Basin. We were not really prepared for hiking in the rain (Although I was carrying an umbrella and a rain jacket) – and thought that if we arrived at the Chisos Basin, and it was raining, we’d cut our hike short to 2 days, and just camp at the Basin Campground.

By the time we started driving towards the Chisos Basin, it was becoming clear that a hike in this weather would not be possible. We reached the basin campground, and found enough empty campgrounds. Obviously the more sensible people had left the campground in such weather and left to the Chisos Basin Lodge instead. From the campground, we went to the Chisos Basin visitor center, and checked the weather report – the weather report said the obvious – rains throughout the day but the next two days would be clear. Also of concern was that the night time temperatures in the Basin would be in the high to low 40’s (F). In terms of clothing, I wasn’t prepared for cold weather, but my sleeping pad was insulated and I had a sleeping bag rated to 30F (which should be comfortable to about 40-45F). We next checked the Basin Lodge to see if there would be any openings – we would get a good sleep and we would get to keep the equipment nice and dry – but no luck – there were no empty rooms and we were asked to check back after 4.

We went back to the campground, picked a spot, pitched the 2 person tent in the rain – which resulted in the tent floor getting a little wet! Dang it! Next time I should use the cover on top first before laying the tent. I never thought about pitching the tent when it was actually raining. It was also getting considerably windy. We then decided to eat something – so after some poorly made coffee (Hey, not enough milk powder, and no sugar and Stevia instead makes your coffee taste pretty bad.), we made some instant rice, and that wasn’t too bad. The second round of the instant rice was pretty bad, and it got burnt at the bottom. Shucks!

After this, I took a short nap in the tent after wiping the floor with paper towel. I didn’t manage to sleep really, but just lying down on the sleeping pad inside the tent was comforting.

By evening – around 4:30pm, 5pm, the rains had subsided considerably and we decided to go on a small hike – we decided to do the “Basin Loop” which is really pretty small. The trail was fully slushy, and I decided to wear a pair of crocs and carry hiking poles 🙂 The other two got their shoes thoroughly covered in wet mud which was almost clay like. We headed back to the campground, re-pitched the 2 person tent because it caught wind like a sail, and decided to uproot itself from the ground. We also pitched Vivek’s 1 person tent. After this we probably had a coffee in the evening.

For dinner, we made noodles – which tasted quite wonderful after the disaster that was lunch. (Burnt instant rice.) I think we also had a pack of Idahoan after this, and instant mashed potatoes don’t taste all that bad when your out camping. In comparison to us who were cooking on a tiny stove and eating meals that were more about weight and calories than taste, there were others who were cooking way better food!

From my photos, we were done eating dinner and doing dishes by around 8:40pm. We were all tired – since we hadn’t gotten much to any sleep the previous night. We decided to retire to bed early. I did check the temperature a little after going to bed and it was 13 C. Yikes!

Day 2: Sunday

The next morning, I think all of us were up early, but the temperatures outside was not inviting. I checked the temperature on my watch and it read 11 C. We finally decided to wake up and get a move on. After having coffee followed by Instant Oatmeal, we decided to pack up our stuff and head out. I think we were done packing the tents by around 9:10 am. However from my photos by the time we got to the trailhead it was 11:30 am. I can’t tell you what we did in those 2 hours, but that was some rotten execution. I’m sure we packed and re-packed our backpacks, we washed the utensils from breakfast and we all changed into hiking clothes, but still ~2.5 hours for that is unacceptable.

We started the hike around 11:30 from the Basin trailhead. The plan was to take

Pinnacles + Colima + Blue Creek on Day 2 and

Blue Creek + Laguna Meadow on Day 3 to return to the Basin trailhead.

I felt pacing at about 2 miles and hour and taking enough breaks in between, we should be done in about 7 hours, so we should be done around 6:30 pm. Unfortunately, I had not accounted for the heavy packs and the more frequent breaks we took. By 4pm, we had done 5.57 miles and needed to do another 5+ miles before sundown. Initially, Mihir was setting the pace and I was last on the single file. After this point, I wanted to set the pace if we were to make before sun-down. We were walking pretty fast, and I almost missed the Blue Creek trail marker 🙂 Mihir and Vivek were faster hiking down than I was – I like to keep a even heart-rate and don’t rush through on the way down considering also that I am not extremely sure-footed on the way down. Let’s say one of us did end up falling – this is part and parcel of hikes, and as long as it’s a minor fall, we do some first aid, and try and get moving after that. By 6:15 pm, we had done 9 miles, and still had about 2 miles to go. At the pace, we would be cutting it fine with respect to the sunset. The other two were pretty tired by this time.

Bear Spotting!

At around 6:45, we spotted a bear not too far away from the trail. Trouble was, the trail was headed right where we spotted it. After stopping on our tracks, we decided to carry on with caution after the bear went into the mountains. We crossed this point armed with hiking poles and stones 🙂 (and knives of course – if it came to that.) Thankfully, the bear never showed up after that. Having seen the bear, and with the sun almost setting on us, I had to literally jog to make sure we camped by sunset.

We reached the Homer Wilson Ranch by 7:30 pm. We were too tired to head to the bear box and come back down. We decided we would cook food, eat, pitch out tents for the night, and then consider stowing our food away at the bear box. We all had enough water in person for the cooking and drinking at night, so we didn’t need to use the water from the cache yet.

We had some hot cocoa, and then after cooking and having delicious Pulav and Paneer Butter Masala, and having pitched out tents, we headed out to wash the utensils. After washing utensils, we wanted to take the food and trash to the bear box, but in the dark, even with flashlights, we couldn’t find the trail leading to the bear box. So, we decide to put the trash in a plastic bottle, and the food in the bear-canister that we had carried, and leave it nearby. After this, we all retired to bed for much needed rest.

Here’s data from the hike:

Day 3: Monday

I woke up again at around 7am, but it was too cold outside. After some time, I decide to go dig myself a cathole 🙂 Wasn’t all that bad or big deal. The trowel did come in handy. After the others had woken up, we took stock of the situation, and decided we would not hike back to the Chisos Basin campground. I personally wanted to do the hike, and would have at least wanted to do the hike without carrying some of our gear out, but in the end I decided it was best not to push anyone.

After having noodles for breakfast 🙂 followed by some bad coffee, Mihir walked to the road near the bear box, hitched a ride to the Basin campground and got the car back. In the meantime, Vivek and I finished packing all our stuff. We decided to walk up to the Ross Maxwell Scenic Highway and wait for Mihir there. At about 12:30 Mihir arrived back with the car. We hiked down to the Homer Wilson Ranch, collected out packs, and left to the car. Once in the car, we drove the the Pather Junction visitor center, told them we had made it back 🙂 and left. By the time we were outside the park, it was already 2pm. We had to drive to Austin, and by my estimates, we would reach around 9-9:30 ish.

Lunch at Alfredos – Fort Stockton:

We all stuffed our faces with food at this Mexican restaurant. The food was pretty ok, and we were finally having decently cooked meals after more than 2 days, so that was a welcome relief.

Almost Running Out of Fuel:

At around 6pm, I noticed that I was almost out of gas! I was hoping and praying that a gas station exit would come some time soon. Thankfully Ozona was close by – we finally reached the gas station with the Car Range reading 0 miles! Yikes!

I got myself a coffee, told the attendant their Gas Station was a Godsend 🙂 and we hit the road again. By the time we were done with the I-10 stretch, the sun had set again. I hate driving on 293 at night because of the animals, but we were nearly home and just wanted to get back. Picked up some food on the way, came back home, took nice hot showers after 3 days had dinner, and slept well deserved sleeps. 🙂

Ok, so I had plans of doing the Outer Mountain Loop (I still have plans, and would have probably done it already before I publish this post.) and wanted to do a day hike as a kind of get to know the park visit.

I live in Austin and having moved from Phoenix area, which had an abundant number of hikes from nearby ranges to Flagstaff, Mt.Lemmon and even the Grand Canyon not too far away, Austin in comparison is a little light on (good/challenging) hiking spots. There are plenty of trails, don’t get me wrong – but most offer a relatively flat terrain. The hardest hike in the Austin area seems to be the ‘Nature Trail’ hike, and that isn’t even challenging enough where I have to carry a cereal bar with me. (I am not dumb, and do carry water though.)

So, I was researching hikes close to Austin, and Big Bend seems to be the go to winter spot for decent hikes in Texas. I was looking for a fairly challenging hike, and looks like the Outer Mountain Loop is a pretty good hike. Of course, to do this, you’d have to backpack, because I don’t think doing 30 miles in a day is advisable. (although, I am wondering if it can be managed if you were prepared to start real early, and hike after sunset. It will also be worth looking at a 2 day itinerary of the OML instead of the more common 3 day.) Anyway, more on the OML later – this is supposed to be a post on the South Rim Loop.

I wanted to do a day hike of the 14-16 mile loop to get a sense of the area. Bid Bend is a 6.5 hour drive from Austin unfortunately, and you have to be a little crazy to want to drive as far to do a day hike, but hey that’s what not doing good hikes for a year does to you! (Considering I have driven from Austin to SFO and back earlier, this is hardly that crazy.) I read a couple of posts on people who have done it in a day in roughly 10 hours. (maybe at an easy pace ?) There isn’t a whole lot of elevation – 2000+ ft I think.

References:

I found some good posts on the hike and am including references to them,

I bought the ebook by Laurence Parent to get some information on the park. The book is fairly informative – but you can probably get most of the information online if you are ok reading multiple articles, and taking notes. I did get a nice map of the whole loop and managed to put the info about all 3 hikes (the south rim hikes) into a single page, and print it out for reference. Of course, I had a topo map from NatGeo to take along as well.

Planning:

The plan was to leave Austin around 4-5pm on a Friday, reach Big Bend at night around 11pm. Initially I was looking at lodging options both inside and outside the Park. There is a Chisos Lodge inside, and a motel right outside (~30 miles ?) the park. But considering me and a (possibly) a couple of friends are going to be backpacking in the same place, I thought might be a good idea to camp instead. i.e., not carry a heavy backpack, and carry only a light day pack, but you know, have the tent and stuff in the car instead.

So the plan evolved to staying in one of the camp sites in the Chisos Basin. (With a little luck, there will be no crowd – else I’ll probably have to sleep in the car.) I tried finding out from the NPS website on how to book these camp sites, but looks like you can only book them within a certain date range. (And that does not encompass my planned dates.) So, after waiting on the line for about 20 mins of listening to recorded messages, I got on line with someone in the park, and told them that I would be arriving after Park hours, and would need to camp. I wondered how I would pay, and if it is ok to pay the day after. He said, there would be self-registration forms near the camp site that I would have to fill, and it would be ok to pay the day after. That was a good piece of information that they could have had on their website, but the website is pretty informative otherwise, so not a lot to complain about.

I’ll probably carry an e-book reader just so I don’t get bored at night on Saturday. I’ll probably stay there on Saturday night as well, considering I might finish the hike late, and then drive out on Sunday morning.

My planned route:

0. Start From Basin trailhead, take the left fork towards South Rim (Pinnacles Trail)

Most likely do the detour to Emory peak and back on the Pinnacles trail. (I don’t think I can do the toll mountain as well unfortunately. Might be overambitious)

Continue on Boot Canyon trail. This would be 5.3 miles. (not including the Emory Peak Detour) At the intersection of Boot Canyon and Northeast rim, decide on whether or not I want to do the Northeast Rim + Southeast Rim detour depending on what time of the day it is, and based on how much I have hiked, and how I am feeling generally. This will add 3.3 miles to the loop (but will remove about 0.7 miles from the main loop.)

South Rim might be a good place to take a lunch break. Start From South Rim, take the Laguna Meadow Trail, pass Colima trail junction, Blue Creek Trail junction and keep going till the Basin trailhead. This is another 6.3 miles.

So in total, not including Emory peak, it would be 15 miles. (Including it might be 18+ miles) I think that sounds like a good day hike. 🙂 There is at least 2000 ft of elevation gain. So while this is no Half Dome hike, I think it comes close in terms of distance and 1/2 the elevation. I guess if you included Toll Mountain, it might be an equivalent-ish hike.

Packing List:

I have to divide this into two lists,

The stuff I will carry on the day hike – which will be in my day pack
I ended up carrying the following: Day pack, First-Aid kit, Point & Shoot Camera, Torch, Headlight, Cliff Bars * 2, Bagel * 1, Half a Subway Sub :), 2 bottles of water mixed in electrolyte mix (Polar 32 oz bottles), 3l platypus hydration pack, small umbrella, portable battery charger, small foldable knife, an extra phone (to track metrics in case the one phone conked out). The ~5l of water was heavy! and with the daypack not having any stays, it was heavy even with the sternum and waist straps adjusted right.

The stuff I will carry in my backpack (which will just remain in the boot of the car.) – This will include my tent, sleeping pad, sleeping bag …etc. I am a little undecided on food – and am thinking I’ll just try and eat meals in the lodge if that is possible. But I might also just take my stove along in case I want to cook something quickly. (Hey, the whole camping experience and stuff, right ?) I don’t think I’m going to be conservative in packing at all – I don’t need to lug this stuff around – so I’ll be going for max comfort, over minimum weight.)

Execution:

I started from Austin at 4:00 pm on Friday, and was stuck in a bit of traffic before hitting I-10. I made it through most of I-10 and to Fort Stockton by a little after sunset. Stopped to refuel at Fort Stockton at around 9pm, ate half a subway sandwich, and started back to the park. The 385 highway stretch was quite desolate, and there were many animals crossing the road – enough to scare you. I reached Big Bend a little before mid-night, but the drive inside towards the Chisos Basin campground was slow, and took me roughly till midnight to get there to find there were no camp-sites available. (Actually, this is partly my fault – I had no plan B in case no camp-sites were available.) After contemplating if I should just sleep in the car in the parking lot (which is probably not allowed.), I decided to go to the Rio Grande Village campground, which was at least 20 miles away, and would take a further 40 minutes +. I reached the campground after 1am, and immediately pitched the tent and went to sleep. It got a little cold at night when I had to get into the sleeping bag 🙂 , but readings taken at night and morning were 23 C and 21 C – definitely not bad weather to sleep outside. There were some animal howls at night, and people walking on gravel, but I mostly slept well.

On Saturday, I woke up at around 7am. There was thankfully a toilet at the RGV campground. I quickly packed up my tent afterwards, and left for the Chisos Visitor center, where I paid the park fees, and was in a hurry to get started on the hike. Had a bagel which I had packed in the day before, but no coffee before the hike. I basically changed into my hiking clothes near my car right near the trailhead. 🙂 and set out to hike at 9am.

I reached the top of Emory-Peak by 12, and had my half a sub worth of lunch there. Afterwards, I headed out on the South Rim trail, and took another break at the South Rim. The views are simply remarkable from this point. I skipped the Northeast Rim loop, since I wanted to finish the hike by 5pm, and adding another 3 miles would have added at least an hour to my time.

I ended up finishing the hike at exactly 5pm near the Chisos trailhead. The original plan was to camp there on Saturday night as well, but I wasn’t feeling all that tired, and decided to just drive back home. 🙂

I spotted a couple of white tailed deers along the trail, and one Scorpion towards the end of the trail.

Ok, while a lot of planning went into trying to make this trip happen, it never did, due to unforeseen circumstances. Bummer! Hopefully, we’ll do it someday in the future, and take pride in having done it.

I even had a t-shirt with a QR code embedded in it with a link to this page 🙂 I’m never wearing that t-shirt in public sight till I complete the hike some day, and have a link to that page in here, so that at least some pride can be salvaged if people ever decide to whip out their smart phones, and look up the QR code.

Update: 2015-11-23:

I finally earned the right to wear that T-shirt with the embedded QR code on it. Although it reads Rim-Rim May 2014, and I did not get a new T-shirt made, (the first time it was a group thing, and we all wanted T-shirts to be worn after the hike 🙂 ) I think I’ll just include a link to the new hike here:

The aim of these posts, was to share some details of the terrain, some logistics such as how to get there, where to park, some of the metrics I collected using a fitness tracking app (Endomondo) – to give a fair idea of what to expect on the hikes if you were to do it. The other idea was also including some snaps taken, and a personal account of what I/we as a group experienced on these hikes – there has to be some fun element to these posts. If it’s just the facts, there are way better resources out there. However, I haven’t found time to do the actual write up’s due to several things keeping me busy. I will hopefully get around to it soon, so that I remember some of the stuff that actually went on.

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As plans kept evolving regarding the main hike, and more new people wanted to try out and see if they’d be interested in the GC R2R, we thought of doing an easier hike. (compared to Camelback.) Butcher Jones trail is in the Apache junction/Superstition Mountains. This is also where “four peaks” is – something I didn’t know, considering I had lived near a namesake pub in Tempe for ~2 years. And this is also where the salt lake is – I have had the good fortune of tubing on the salt lake. This is one of the picturesque hikes you will do, even if it is not the most challenging of hikes in terms of elevation. I think I enjoyed this hike in spite of it not being very challenging.

The aim of these posts, was to share some details of the terrain, some logistics such as how to get there, where to park, some of the metrics I collected using a fitness tracking app (Endomondo) – to give a fair idea of what to expect on the hikes if you were to do it. The other idea was also including some snaps taken, and a personal account of what I/we as a group experienced on these hikes – there has to be some fun element to these posts. If it’s just the facts, there are way better resources out there. However, I haven’t found time to do the actual write up’s due to several things keeping me busy. I will hopefully get around to it soon, so that I remember some of the stuff that actually went on.

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This hike was done on 02-01-2014 – the first of many hikes leading to the planned Grand Canyon rim-rim hike. I had never hiked regularly before this, but had been cycling for about 6 months leading up to this, so I thought I was in pretty decent shape cardio wise. But yes, there were people wearing elevation masks running up and down the slopes. 🙂 There are two trails to get to the Camelback mountain peak – (i) Echo trail and (ii) Cholla trail. I haven’t been on the Echo trail, so I personally don’t know how they compare. The elevation to the top from the cholla trail was ~800ft, although difference of min and max altitude is 1328 ft – which is weird because endomondo should show a total elevation higher than this. Generally, total elevation gain is higher or equal to the elevation gain between two points, since there can be ups and downs, in which case you have ascended a higher elevation.

For first time hikers, it is a bit challenging. Also note that this elevation change is over a distance of ~1.4 miles. So, it is steep.

I made the mistake of wearing my worn down running shoes on the hike, since I was a novice hiker, and was slipping and sliding on the way down. On the way up as well, I didn’t have sure-footing but it wasn’t too bad compared to on the way down. Also, I made the mistake of carrying a bottle in my hand instead of carrying a backpack/water pack. At the top, I definitely needed both hands in some sections.

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I am Karthik.Welcome to my blog. All of the content on my blog are my own opinions,ideas and crazy notions. It has absolutely nothing to do with my past, present and future employers. My opinions in no way represent the opinions and ideologies of my organization(s). So if at all you decide to file a lawsuit, it will have to be against me, and I assure you, I am bankrupt.

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Moi

I am an Electrical and Electronics Engineer by qualification and used to work as a Systems/Software Engineer. I left that job to pursue a Master's Degree in Electronics, (back to square one, I know) and after two years of toil, graduated and have been working as an Engineer in the field of semiconductors, since.
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